silent struggle with the forces of irneligion were starting to show.
Quite contrary to the intentions of those who had instigated the case, the widespread publicity of the Denizli trials and imprisonment of Bediuzzaman and the Risale-i Nur Students led directly to a considerable expansion in activities connected with the Risale-i Nur. While up to this time, activity had been mainly concentrated in two or three areas, now many thousands of people in different areas of Turkey became its students and began to serve it and the cause of the Qur'an in various ways. In addition to this, in 1946 or '47 two of the first duplicating machines to come to Turkey were bought by Students and one set up in Isparta and the other in Inebolu, with the result that copies of the Risale-i Nur were now available on a far wider scale then previously. This greatly increased spread of the Risale-i Nur following on after the acquittals further infuriated the enemies of religion and drove them to embark on a series of plots and plans in their attempts to stop it. The basic aim of these was to make both the local government and Ankara feel sufficiently apprehensive about Bediuzzaman and the Risale-i Nur movement to act against them once a again. One result of this was that all the attention was focused on Bediuzzaman himself and constraints on him increased. Thus, despite the fact that he had been acquitted by Denizli Court and the Risale-i Nur had been cleared, the surveillance under which he was held was even stricter than previously, and the illegal harassment and ill-treatment more severe. However Bediuzzaman wrote to his students that he accepted this "with pride" as it meant it was his person that was concentrated on and harassed rather than the Risale-i Nur or its other students; it allowed them to continue their service of it relatively unmolested.

A further reason of this intensification of the ideological battle between belief and unbelief at this time, culminating in Bediuzzaman's and a number of his students's arrest and detention in Afyon Prison, was related to the changing conditions in Turkey, and may be attributed to the fact that, with increased American influence after the end of the Second World War and moves towards democracy and more religious freedom, those working for the cause of irreligion increased their attacks somewhat in desperation as they felt the ground slipping away from under their feet, which up to that